Unmentionables

Not too long ago, undergarments were something no one ever talked about.
When I searched for all the names for underwear I found: bloomers, pants,
skivvies, drawers, tightie whities, undies, knickers, boxers, BVD’s, panties,
underclothes, gotchies and briefs.  And, the word underpants still makes me laugh!

When I was in elementary school I had recurrent nightmares that I would
fall down in the playground, up would fly my skirt and I would not be wearing
any panties.  The idea of seeing someone’s panties was was a topic for six
year olds’ imaginations, viewed as something funny or a forbidden thrill.
How things have changed.

I was told by Mom and Dad that I was out soaking in a red-rimmed, white porcelain
basin in lieu of a swimming pool.  I was wearing my white “coconut pants” as I called my
terry-toweling panties.  I actually think that was a brilliant name for a three year old to
come up with.  Apparently I invented “streaking” when I removed my undies and took
off running down the road outside our suburban home.  Mom was after me in a flash.
 
At around the same age, my daughter Danielle was with me on a visit to an ice cream
social at the old-age home down the street.  She was dressed in her favourite below-
the-knee length pink dress.  She and a few other youngsters played on the floor in the
centre of the seniors and visitors gathered around in a circle.  We had been there
about an hour when I lifted Dani up onto my lap.  In so doing, I felt a soft, warm, bare
bum under her dress.  Horrified, we returned home to find the floral panties tossed on
her bedroom floor where she’d thrown them upon deciding that they were superfluous.
What can I say, like mother, like daughter?

Then, there are the men’s underpants…..which will remain unmentionable.

My Dad told us a story about being on a school bus with his art class
heading to the Art Gallery of Ontario for a fieldtrip.  About one third
of the teens and Dad happened to be watching a group of people waiting
for the streetcar.  Suddenly, a woman’s underpants fell down around her
ankles and naturally, everyone broke up laughing.  I asked Dad what she
did about them and to his recollection the scarlet-faced woman just
kicked them off.  And, being teenagers, the incident of the woman and
her panties remained more memorable than any of the art works they had
viewed at the gallery.

The only thong I relate to.  Also known as flip flops in the 1960’s.

A big thank you to Google for the images.

Crushed by the Loss of Innocence

We popped on the TV to check the weather and there, unfolding before our eyes
and ears was another senseless school shooting.  Surrounded by police, medics, FBI,
police dogs, sirens, helicopters, screaming and smoke, echoes of gunfire, terrified
teenagers with their arms above their heads filed out of their high school one
behind the other.  Stretchers were carried out to the temporary medical tent as
lock down continued with the search for the shooter.  Parents were on cell phones
with their children as the nightmare unfolded and soon the numbers of injured and
dead were announced.  I watched, transfixed, stunned, teary-eyed  until I could not
take any more.

Why does this scenario continue to replay in a continuous loop, month after month,
year after year?  I  was imagining the parents who had sent their children to school
that morning, February 14, a day dedicated to love.  Later they were called to the
morgue to identify them.   Families and friends are now scarred for life; not from war
or a horrible accident or a natural disaster but from being in school, in America!
Learning the facts about the shooter and the red flags with threats and actions only
make the situation uglier. 

The flags hang across the country at half-mast, a physical display of grief and a symbol
of the nation’s lack of action in making change to stop the slaughter of our youth.


(collages by Caron)

What happened a split second after I took this photo?

a)  I dropped my camera.

b)  A pelican flew past my nose.

c)  I fell off my bike.

d)  All of the above.

I was sitting on my bike with one foot resting on a rock while I took a few

photos.  Suddenly I felt my body lifting into the air in a backwards somersault

and as I began to question what was happening I crash landed on top of

my bike.  It is amazing how quickly the mind reacts and notifies the brain

that you are in the middle of a bad experience but there is no way you can

change it now!

I have had three previous falls, breaking my thumb after tumbling down a

staircase,  cracking my shoulder after slipping on ice and breaking five small

bones in my foot after a hiking fall over damp rocks.

The human body is so impressive in its healing powers!

Chris helped me up from my bike and I felt only a small throbbing in my calf.

I was very lucky ending up with only four good bruises, two plus a scrape on

my butt cheek, one on my hand and another on the back of my calf. 

Of course, I also tore a hole in my favourite pants.  My bike was fine.

The following day, we were out cycling again and as we turned a corner

Chris flew off his bike and rolled across the sidewalk to a halt.  Luckily he was

uninjured. 

We continue to wear our helmets, ride as safely as possible and be

inspired by those young Olympic Athletes in Pyeongchang.

 

I was thinking a toy phone might be a fun interactive gift for my one year old grandson…..

And it suddenly hit me that Finn has only seen an I-phone!  As much as I love my I-phone,
I agree with many friends that is has brought many negative social behaviours along with
its convenience. I do not intend to begin that conversation.
As I looked at the brightly coloured plastic toy I-phones I was struck by the immense role
that “old phones” have played in my past and a flood of memories rushed into my brain. 

Images of the phones in my life as I grew up were numerous, the iconic black rotary phone
and its later coloured cousins that allowed buyers to coordinate their phone with their couch,
the princess phone that I pined for and the wall phone that I was attached to for hours of my
teenage life and then the push buttons that replaced the rotary dial.





I air-dialed my home phone number which will be engrained in my brain forever.
We all had phone prefix names, mine was Belmont and my cousin's Clifford.  Again,
one thought led to another and I was suddenly recalling Phone-Number songs.
“Beechwood 4-5789” 1962, The Marvelettes;  Glenn Miller’s “Pennsylvania 6-5000”;
Blondie “Call Me” 1980; “Party line” 1966, The Kinks.  How many of you had a party-line?





Memories crowded in of the many phones that were such an
important part of Movies, TV and Stage.  In many cases
the phone was not only a prop but a character itself.









The iconic phone booths in old hotels and train stations, on street corners
and gas stations all produce numerous memories.  One’s taste or status could be
determined by the style of the phone(s) at home, business or hotel.  The telephone
operator plays out numerous scripts in film and TV.  The receiver dangling off a wall
phone, the sheriff dialing a saloon phone in a western movie,  a crook yanking out
the power wires to a home phone, the sheer suspense of a phone’s ringing breaking the
silence of a scene, the delivery of a phone to the table of a restaurant customer,
the mysterious messages being played back to detectives in a murder mystery,
a young child heroically phoning for help and the repairman balancing at a phone box
high up near the wires, phone booth terror and heroics, love stories; all these classics
developed around the now “obsolete phones”.










I can hear you singing it!

It seems that I could go on for pages but I will end here and once again thank Google
for the images and this great poster to summarize my blog.